Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Berkeley Journal of International Law
Volume
27
Publication Date
2009
Keywords
Broadcast Media, Social Networking, Lobbying, Self-Government, Legal Framework
Abstract
This Essay explores a fascinating new truth: because of the Internet, governments, corporations, and citizens of other countries can now meaningfully participate in United States elections. They can phone bank, editorialize, and organize in ways that impact a candidate's image, the narrative structure of a campaign, and the mobilization of base support. Foreign governments can bankroll newspapers that will be read by millions of voters. Foreign companies can enlist employees in massive cross-continental email campaigns. Foreign activists can set up offline meetings and organize door-to-door campaigns in central Ohio. They can, in short, influence who wins and who loses. Depending upon your intuitions, this might seem like a very good thing, or the beginning of the end of democratic self-governance. While this has yet to occur on a massive scale, signs abound that extraterritorial electioneering is beginning.
Recommended Citation
Zephyr Teachout,
Extraterritorial Electioneering and the Globalization of American Elections, 27 Berkeley J. Int'l Law 162
(2009)
Available at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/faculty_scholarship/428
Included in
Communications Law Commons, Comparative and Foreign Law Commons, Election Law Commons, Law and Politics Commons
